Word/Phrase Query Tools
In my (betaveros’s) opinion, the first three tools are all highly useful; each has significant unique strengths that may make them superior to all other tools, depending on the scenario. They are the first three tools I would suggest learning, in that order. The remaining tools are not as strongly ordered; I believe every one of them may still be superior to all other tools in some specific scenarios, but those scenarios will be rarer.
| Tool | Corpus | Search pattern support | Semantic search |
|---|---|---|---|
| OneLook (+ Reverse Dictionary) | synthesis of dictionaries | globs*, consonants/vowels, conjunction, anagramming | reverse dictionary |
| Nutrimatic | mined from Wikipedia + Wiktionary | custom regexes w/ anagramming and (buggily?) rearranging arbitrary patterns | no |
| Qat (about) | choice/union of dictionaries | custom regexes w/ multiple word constraints, anagramming, letterbanks | “qategories” |
| MoreWords | Scrabble-ish dictionary | globs* | no |
| RhymeZone | dictionary | globs* | no |
| CrosswordNexus Wikipedia Regex Search | Wikipedia/Wiktionary titles | Perl regexes w/ backreferences | no |
| Lou Hevly’s Regex Dictionary | American Heritage Dictionary 4th | Perl regexes w/ backreferences | no |
| Mystery Hunter’s Word Search | choice of dictionaries/Wiki titles | Perl regexes w/ backreferences? | no |
| NPL’s Base Finding Tools | choice of dictionaries | single-letter wildcards | no |
| OneAcross | ? | single-letter wildcards | crossword clue database |
| util.in’s Heavy-Duty Anagram Solver | ? | simple regexes and anagramming; “80% confidence” letters | no |
* “globs” is shorthand for the “any single letter” wildcard and “any number of letters” wildcard, the two simplest components of glob patterns in programming.
Anagramming
Codes and Ciphers
Printable code sheets
| Table | A=1 Bases | Morse | Braille | Semaphore | ASCII | Others |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Puzzled Pint (PDF) | 2, 3, 10, 16 | yes | yes | yes | Pigpen, NATO | |
| Eric Harshbarger (PDF) | 2, 10, Roman | yes | yes | yes | yes | ASL, phone, ICS flags, Scrabble, Dvorak, Dancing Man, Gold Bug; also includes digits 0–9 |
| Netninja.com (PDF) | 2, 3, 8, 10, 16 | yes | yes | yes | yes | good “reverse” Morse/semaphore lookup |
Other References
- Wikipedia articles for the usual suspects: Braille, Flag semaphore, International maritime signal flags, Morse code, Pigpen cipher key, Spelling alphabets
- Best ASCII Table
- PhoneSpell
- HandSpeak
Tools
- Corby’s Decoders (Morse, Braille, semaphore)
- cryptii (a lot of ciphers, encodings (e.g. base64), and modern cryptography (e.g. AES block ciphers))
- CyberChef (a lot of ciphers, encodings, modern crypto, and parsing modern formats (e.g. parse Protobuf))
- dCode (a lot of ciphers, some math and simple cryptoanalysis tools)
- monkey (Morse, Braille, semaphore, amino acids)
- quipqiup (substitution ciphers)
- Rumkin Cipher Tools (a lot of classical ciphers)
- tools.qhex.org (basic encodings, some counting cryptoanalysis tools, wordplay commands, automagic extraction, word search, some grid puzzle and polyomino assembly solvers)
- solvertools (Python library including ciphers, wordplay, some types of automatic extraction, and a “cromulence” metric — whether something “looks like” an answer)
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For your phone:
- iOS: Puzzle Sidekick
- Android: Puzzlehunt Assistant; Puzzle Pal
- Windows Phone: Puzzle Tools